U.S. Anti-Drug Plan Would Recast Legal System in Mexico

Source: Washington Post

MEXICO CITY -- The Bush administration's proposed counternarcotics aid package for Mexico would set in motion a vast reengineering of the country's justice system, revamping the legal education process, creating a network of court clerks and helping to write new laws

. . .

Bush proposed the package Oct. 22, announcing its inclusion in a supplementary war spending bill. The aid was requested by the Mexican government, which has been struggling to contain a war among drug cartels that are blamed for more than 4,000 killings in the past 18 months. If approved by the U.S. Congress, the package would represent a landmark in relations between the two countries, which often have failed to coordinate counternarcotics efforts.

About 40 percent of the aid package would go to the Mexican military, which would receive helicopters, planes and ion scanners, which detect traces of drugs. The military, which President Felipe Calder¿n is deploying in anti-drug offensives, has been accused of human rights violations by several international organizations, complicating its inclusion in the deal.

. . .

The plan proposes helping to "develop appropriate legislation," which some analysts believe could be perceived as an attempt by the United States to dictate Mexican laws. . .

. . .

Beyond detailing the multi-pronged plan, the documents present the fullest explanation to date of its goals and give insights about which institutions the U.S. government sees as best able to attack the drug problem. In one instance, the document states that Mexico's military, known by its Spanish-language initials SEDENA, is better suited to interdict drug shipments, especially those in remote areas, than the Mexican federal police or the customs agency.

. . .

While the documents provide a trove of details about the drug plan, some areas are not fully fleshed out. Half a million dollars would be set aside for media campaigns designed to create a "culture of lawfulness" and for helping nongovernmental organizations develop "centers of moral authority." But the document does not define a center of moral authority.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/17/AR2007111701698_pf.html

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Is Mexico a sovereign nation or isn't it.

The US dictating that the Mexican military enforce drug laws instead of law enforcement personnel? The US changing Mexican DoJ laws and personnel and prison systems? The US even going so far as defining Mexican culture of lawfulness and moral authority?

And all this to be slipped into the supplemental war budget.

Why do you think they are allowing Mexican trucker free range to the US? Why else do you think they are tanking the Dollar? When the dollar is on par with the peso we will be glad to get some value in the Amero.

one or two truckers, then it was stopped

stop it but the "Executives" are going about their business. Se have to have states pass Constitutional Amendments that eminent Domain can not be used to take private land for Corporate profit In every state.

I'm reminded of religion. "Culture of lawfulness" and media campaigns reminds of our own manipulated corporate media....That first paragraph also is poorly explained. Would Mexico end up with a system such as ours that the legal system becomes so complex and convoluted that only a lawyer can understand it? ...Further, the conclusion seems to presume the U.S. is a beacon of integrity, and it's Mexico that has the corruption problem. That seems like a institutional version of psychological projection. ...I wonder what ever happened to the idea of posse comitatus(?) and why does the United States always seem to have a different rule for others versus itself?

comes through the proper channels. Wouldn't want all that poisoned cashola falling into the wrong hands. Keep those borders tight fellas!

where to begin to disentangle it. That's why I don't generally read the WaPo. They are way, way gone to the Dark Side.

But let me just start with the premise that Bush Junta wants to stop drug trafficking. This is no more true than their desire to stop "terrorism," or their desire to "keep America safe" by torturing prisoners, or their imposition of "freedom" on the Iraqis by slaughtering one million of them, or any of the other baldfaced lies that WaPo lets them blather on about.

The "war on drugs"--like every other Bush Junta project--is first of all a BOONDOGGLE, that is, the unwarranted oozing of billions and billions of our tax dollars out of the U.S. treasury, in this case to the war and police state industries (in which they are heavily invested).

Secondly, it is the means they are giving to rightwing/fascist and global corporate predator-friendly Latin American governments to OPPRESS their people with, so that they can never achieve social justice, fairness and real democracy. This "aid" will be used, for instance, against the people of Oaxaca, where the teachers' union protest was unmercifully crushed by the Bush-appointed (stolen election) Calderon government, after hundreds of its peaceful protesters had been kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered by paramilitaries under the direction of the rightwing (stolen election) governor. Calderon used the federal police. Now they will use the military--as other protests inevitably arise. This is the pattern in Colombia as well. Billions and billions of U.S. tax dollars poured into the fascist military, and into their closely associated fascist paramilitaries, for KILLING union organizers, small peasant farmers and political leftists, in furtherance of their own (and the Bush Cartel's?) big-time drugs and weapons trafficking. The drug trade and the drug lords--and also the weapons trade--just keep getting bigger and bigger, in the neverending, entirely phony, "war on drugs."

Re-writing Mexico's laws to suit Bush Junta/corporate purposes is what happens to a "client state." Mexico will end up with a Department of Justice like ours--full of young fascist 'christian' zealots whose moral compass stopped back at God inflicting the Great Flood on humanity for worshiping the Goddess, or at Lot's wife being turned to stone for being curious about God's torture and murder of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. Good luck to those badass drug dealers (poor peasant farmers) who get sprayed with Dow Chemical's latest pleasantries, and prosecuted for growing a little weed to supplement their starvation income. Oh, and in the Boondoggle section, I forgot to mention U.S. chemical companies, and also monsters like Monsanto and Chiquita, whose profit is served by driving small peasant farmers off their land.

Thirdly, the fascist militarization of Mexico is for creating a buffer zone of central American "client states" that are riven with violence and a stark rich/poor divide, and ruled by the fascist boot, against the peaceful, democratic Bolivarian Revolution to the south, where countries like Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina and Nicaragua are establishing principles of social justice, the use of a country's resources for the benefit of the people who live there, maximum citizen participation in government and politics, regional cooperation and independence (such as evicting the World Bank/IMF from the region, and replacing it the social justice-friendly Bank of the South, and beginning discussions of a South American "Common Market" and common currency--to get off the U.S. dollar), and--very important--no U.S. "war on drugs," which the Bolivarians understand perfectly well to be heinously corrupt and corrupting.

The Bolivarians are overturning centuries of oppression. Our corporate rulers don't want us to get any such ideas. Thus, the "buffer zone." Guatemala is the model--where 200,000 Mayan villagers were slaughtered with Reagan's complicity in the 1980s, to stop the social justice movement with mass murder, to create a "free trade" zone for drugs and weapons trafficking, and lots of gangsters and street and political violence, to keep fascist government in power. In the recent election in Guatemala, the Bushite candidate (former head of the death squads) did just that--called for more militarism and a police "crackdown," but the voters--amazingly--rejected it, and voted for the liberal candidate into social justice and human rights. All the more urgency, therefore, to Bushite militarization of Mexico, although I fear that liberal government in Guatemala--the first in its history--may not survive rightwing/Bushite plots, and the chaotic violence that is characterizes every Bushite project, or, if it does, will have to bend over for "free trade," and aid contingent on accepting U.S. "war on drugs" agents and bases.

Fourthly, the purpose of this fascist boondoggle of weaponry is to destroy the "New Deal" and any hope of social justice and progressive policy here at home. All this money being poured into the war/police state industry is non-existent. We are looking at a TEN TRILLION DOLLAR deficit--mostly from the war on Iraq and big tax cuts for the rich. Our future is hocked ad infinitum. They are already heavily borrowing against Social Security and government pension funds, and when those are gone, the "New Deal" is dead--and this, after letting their corporate buds loot private pension funds. There is no more money--for health care, for jobs training, for education, for small business, for any kind of bootstrapping, for repairing our neglected infrastructure, for paying for vital local services, or for anything else. The "New Deal"--"drowned in the bathtub" by Grover Norquist and his dirty, fascist cabal.

As for any progressive strength we have to recover, and to re-create a just society, and to re-begin regulating (if not dismantling) these global corporate predators who are destroying our democracy and our country, the idea is to leave us with NOTHING. To loot everything. To take our last dime. The American people are a potentially great progressive force in the world. Our energies and commitment are desperately needed to stop global warming. We are a peace-loving, justice-loving people, with strong, long-lasting democratic traditions, and a history of successful social justice movements. This fascist lard to Mexico and Colombia--and to any other toady rich elites that the Bushites can entice to betray their own people--is MEANT as a final blow to our solvency as a nation, so that this great progressive force can never rise again.


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Now, with my tirade in mind, go back and read WaPo's sneaky (and not so sneaky) propaganda for the war/police state industry.

Just one for instance:

"The military, which President Felipe Calderon is deploying in anti-drug offensives, has been accused of human rights violations by several international organizations, complicating its inclusion in the deal." --WaPo

Since when has the Bush Junta given one flying fuck about "human rights"? They are the most lawless violators of human rights that we have ever suffered under--and one of the most lawless on earth. They have slaughtered a million innocent people in Iraq, to get their oil. They have tortured thousands of innocent people for I don't know what (to cover the tracks of their many crimes? to do business favors for their cronies? for the sheer fun of it? --I wouldn't put anything past them!). Yet worse, in these flagrant violations of national and international law, they have given leave to everyone else to torture and kill for profit and power.

For WaPo to blandly and routinely imply--as if it were a given--that the Bush Junta CARES about the concerns of "international organizations" is a lie. They cleverly state it as a "complication." Guess why? Because they still have some standards of decency in Mexico and other countries that our government doesn't share.

But here's the whopper. Calderon is asserting Mexican SOVEREIGNTY over the "war on drugs." He doesn't want the U.S. military ensconced in his country. And, for all his rightwingism, the principle is a vital one. He is more than likely to use this aid to oppress his own people, but it is at least MEXICAN oppression, potentially remedied in Mexico's legal and political systems--rather than oppression inflicted by a distant power over whom ordinary Mexicans have no potential control at all. And that's what the Bushites want. They want U.S.--and BLACKWATER--boots in Mexico, in order to crush the social justice movement there WITH IMPUNITY. They have the interests of Exxon-Mobile, and Monsanto, and all these corporate predators to protect. And they don't trust Mexico to protect them, even with all this military aid.

Bear in mind that Mexico came within a hairsbreadth--0.05%--of electing a leftist president last year, one with a genuine commitment to the poor and to social justice--in an election that was contested, and probably stolen. This electorate must be crushed. That is the Bushite plan. It has nothing whatever to do with drug trafficking. I guarantee you, ten years from now, the drug trade will have doubled or trebled.

And it's interesting what Calderon said to Bush, when Bush visited Mexico last March. He publicly lectured Bush on the SOVEREIGNTY of Latin American countries--and used Venezuela as an example! (Apparently, Latin American leaders were onto Bush plots in Venezuela, and were offended by them--because Bush got the same lecture everywhere he went, from both left and right.)

So, the WaPo gabble about "international organizations" and their concern about human rights violations by the Mexican military may be nonsense as well. Who are these "organizations"? Why are they weighing in on a matter of Mexican sovereignty? Figure it out. What OTHER military--SO WELL KNOWN FOR ITS HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD--would be mustered IN PLACE OF the Mexican military? The hijacked U.S. military now belonging to the Bush Cartel, with Blackwater mercenaries for special jobs--like taking out rival drug lords (after they are located by U.S. "ion scanners").

It's just too pat--these "international organizations" providing the argument for the U.S. military to operate in Mexico.

The South American countries--Ecuador, for instance--are ridding themselves of U.S. military bases. President Correa said that he would permit the U.S. military base to remain in Ecuador if the U.S. would permit an Ecuadoran military base to be established in Miami! He was joking--sort of. His point was that foreign boots on your soil is a violation of your sovereignty--a general theme of Latin Americans these days. Upshot: Bases for U.S. military surveillance and operations--and for interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, especially leftist democracies--are getting harder and harder to find. That's one reason why these billions of dollars to Mexico are contingent upon their loss of sovereignty to what will be the permanent establishment of the U.S. military on Mexican soil.

In general, WaPo treats this truly putrid project--and an economically (and socially) ruinous one, to us--with a straight face. Believe me, they know what this is about. Murder, mayhem and oppression--to make the rich richer and oppress the poor. But they won't ever print the truth about it. They are its "used car salesmen."

Well, I hope I have illuminated some of the black holes in this article, and blown a few of their smug assumptions all to hell. WaPo is an organ of the war machine. Not one word that they write should be trusted.

Check out this link to see photos... stunning.

i suppose it clearly illustrates the mentality of the administration?

Hey America, wouldn't it be much better if we could legalize marijuana and tax it. Now as far as meth labs, crack houses and etc. I say create safe places for drug addicts to use drugs with clean needles. Why does the damn government have to interfere with someone's choice? Prison's are over crowded with people serving mandatory minimums.

in Mexico. All the crap about the labs here is pretty much a thing of the past. The drug cartels have fully moved into the manufacturing of Meth. All of the high potency crystal is made there without controls on the ingredients. This is part of the Nazi dream, everyone whacked out on Meth. Wonder what border-policing corporation will be profiting the most on bringing it over?

were Nazi types. Meth is a worldwide epidemic. Hitler used meth. The Zero Kamakazi pilots were wigged out on meth. Both sides in WWII used Amphetamines. It was used by U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Even John Kennedy had a private doc. shoot him up when he needed a fix. Let's just say I know somebody who used to use the shit heavily for a long time. You can stay up for days at a time without sleep or food doing all kinds of freaky things. After you come down and crash, no worries, as long as you get some more you're up and runnin' again. If you are a determined control freak you can use it, sleep fairly regularly, and eat regularly. Some people are life-long amp monsters. You'd be surprised the number of people with guns who use the shit. The survivors are often mean mother fuckers. Many get used by others and lose everything before they get trampled under. It's a real bitch.

They're new to me...

http://amphetamines.com/john-kennedy.html You can google for more. That info and the rest has been learned by me over the years, all not fictional. When you spend two decades involved in the shit you pick up information about its history. A lot is from PBS documentaries and the like. If you insist I can dig more up. As far as the Mexican information, I've seen evidence of that first hand, you can google it too. As far as calling the biker/hillbillies Nazis, that was generalizing a bit. It's not fair to lump people together like that, even if some of them did belong to notorious biker gangs sometimes known to work for shady institutions. Hey, here's a good page, a little dated (2002), the purity and volume from Mexico are much greater now http://www.drugwarfacts.org/methamph.htm Here's newer info on Mexican production http://www.banderasnews.com/0704/nr-methproduction.htm Oh, and here's one about Hitler http://amphetamines.com/amphetam.html You know, I often wonder about Bush and his buddies.

If it is a Bush plan it will fail.

The War on (some) Drugs is an evil exercise in tyranny and lies. I count its supporters among traitors to liberty.

coming around with it's hand out when reforms of their own policies and .gov could and would raise their people's standard of living, quality of life and would eliminate the need for handouts. If the US tax dollars are going south then there had better be caveats...it is like giving a kid something without strings, no appreciation and they will be back sooner than later. I agree with decriminalization of most drugs and put the enforcement money (including this money being sent to Mexico) toward comprehensive free drug treatment availability for those who want and need it.

We are handing cash to Mexican elite and in exchange we receive rights over their natural resources, their laws and their people.

The people of Mexico will receive no benefit from this money. There will be no reduction of drugs coming into the US. There will be no reduction of Mexican immigrants.

people.

The Mexican people will lose more of their liberty.

They're running short on funds from the Iraq war, so suddenly they're concerned about their fall-back position, the war on drugs instead of terra?

What, bush wants like $14-$15 billion? A copy of the Patriot Act and a few unemployed mercenaries and some very successful spying companies contracts shouldn't cost that much. Overhead... sheesh.

but I wouldn't bet against the Mexican people.

They'll elect Obrador the next time, and they're a very nationalistic, proud people.

I don't see it happening, although I agree it may be attempted.

that this move into Mexico to help curb drug flow is just a cover for other business. I assume that for one thing they want to control traffic and make sure the money goes through the "proper" channels. I really don't think they want to stop drugs from coming in, or they would long ago have invested in focusing on addressing the problem from completely different angles. In my view they are profiting from the drug problem any which way they can. If America really began to fix its bad habits like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, anti-depressants, alcohol, etc., many individuals and communities might actually begin to heal and start being more fruitful. Greater numbers of people might actually participate more in our Democracy, rather than being absorbed in all-consuming addictions to energy-diverting substance abuses and all of the the accompanying psychological problems. It looks to me like there are big plans for Mexico and our neighbors further south that this administration wants to begin setting the stage for.